Stress and Conflict Management in Schools

Running Head: STRESS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 1
Stress and Conflict Management in Schools
NAME
COURSE
UNIVERSITY/AFFILIATION

STRESS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 2
Journal: Effective stress management: A model of emotional intelligence, self-leadership, and
student stress coping. Journal of Management Education. Retrieved from:
https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/effective-stress-management-a-model-of-
emotional-intelligence-sel
Introduction
Conflict is part and parcel of everyday life in any organizational setting. Stress and
conflict management have gained a lot of popularity in schools (McNamara & Norman, 2010).
Also, it has been a very controversial topic as researchers have come up with different ways of
managing conflicts and stress. In schools, students can be stressed due to several factors such as
conflicts among themselves as well as poor decisions that are made by the management. For
example, varying ideas during group discussions can lead to conflicts. Apart from varying ideas,
poor group leadership can also lead to conflicts whereby a leader may discriminate some
members due to several factors such as religion, race and gender. Other than students, staff is
also susceptible to conflicts. School management conflicts can also be attributed to varying ideas
and instructional type of leadership (Cooper, C., & Travers, 2012). Following these
developments, many schools worldwide have established counseling department that has played
some vital roles to enhance smooth workflow and respect. The main aim of this report is to
explain explicitly how conflicts and stress can be managed effectively.
Definition:
Conflict: It can be defined as a disagreement that emerges when a person is negatively affected
with other people’s interests.

STRESS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 3
Conflict Management: It can be defined as processes that are involved to ensure that a conflict
has been solved peacefully (Aboui, Tahmassian & Khosh, 2010).
Stress: It can be defined as emotional strain that is caused by demanding circumstances.
Stress Management: It can be defined as techniques that aims at managing stress level (Powell &
Enright, 2015).
Discussion
Lipsky & Avgar (2010) focuses on the traditional and modern approaches of solving
disputes. They argue that conflict management was one of the responsibilities of administrators.
In traditional approach, the organizations managed conflicts by hiring those people that they
trusted. Hence, limiting chances of hiring people who could lead to workplace conflicts.
However, supervisors were rarely trained to solve disputes. Most organizations especially in the
U.S. have experienced some changes in conflict management. For example, Raytheon and Nestle
companies have incorporated Conflict Management Systems (CMS) into their operations. Some
of the characteristics of these systems include; broad scope and multiple options. Lipsky &
Avgar (2010) argues that integrating conflict systems is inevitable as the field of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) is experiencing tremendous growth day in day out. However,
they argues that these systems should be implemented in accordance with organizational culture
as well as objectives.
Besides, Welle & Graf (2011) have focused on the effects of stress on student’s health.
They argues that young students especially freshmen are vulnerable to stress. However, the
following are some of the ways in which students can protect themselves from stress; social
interaction, exercising regularly and participating in extra-curricular activities such as playing

STRESS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 4
football to enhance physical health. Welle & Graf (2011) also argues that some students use
drugs as a way of dealing with stress. These drugs can lead to serious health problems. On the
other hand, Saeed, Almas, Anis-ul-Haq & Niazi (2014) suggests than leadership plays some
important roles in managing conflicts. They argues that effective co-ordination among
employees is an important aspect that contributes greatly towards organization’s success. Hence,
leaders should ensure that they have solved disputes effectively. Also, they should ensure that
non-cooperative employees have been punished severely. In addition, they should ensure that
hardworking employees have been rewarded, hence enhancing creativity and hassle-free working
environment. Therefore, there is a need of leaders to adopt better conflict solving techniques
such as direct and indirect confrontation. These techniques should be applied in different ways
depending on the situation at hand (Saeed et al., 2014).
Moreover, Talib (2010) focuses on the impacts of culture on counselling. Culture is
concerned with shared values and beliefs of a given society. It determines how a member of a
given society is expected to behave. It is created by people, hence cannot exist on its own. Still
on effects of culture, arguments are undergoing regarding whether mandatory counselling is
useful in Malaysia. Those who support it argued that chances of the clients seeking counseling
services in future is extremely high (Talib, 2010). On the contrary, opponents argued that
mandatory counselling is unethical since people are not given a chance of making their own
decisions. Values play some vital roles in understanding people’s culture. The following are
some of the Malaysian values; respect, honesty and ambitious. These values emphasizes on
collectiveness rather than individualism. Hence, people’s culture should be put into consideration
in counselling services such as conflict and stress management (Talib, 2010).